EC ready with new-age electronic voting machines with printing unit

A revised version of the electronic voting machine, complete with a printing unit to generate a voter verifiable paper trail, is set to be cleared by the Election Commission early next week.

| TNN | Feb 2, 2013, 04.32 AM IST

Sources said that around 6 lakh EVMs, all procured in or after 2006, will be fitted with a printer that will h... Read More

NEW DELHI: A revised version of the electronic voting machine (EVM), complete with a printing unit to generate a voter verifiable paper trail, is set to be cleared by the Election Commission early next week.

The expert technical committee, which examined the viable EVM prototypes that enable a paper trail of each ballot cast, has completed the trials and zeroed in on the final model that will cost an additional Rs 8,000-9,000 per machine.

Sources in the EC told TOI that around 6 lakh EVMs, all procured in or after 2006, will be fitted with a printer that will have a drop box to store the paper trail of the votes cast. This is expected to alleviate concerns — expressed earlier by the opposition led by BJP — over possible tampering of EVMs to favour a certain candidate.

The cost of updating the existing 6 lakh printer-compatible EVMs is estimated at around Rs 540 crore. Incidentally, over 10 lakh EVMs need to be deployed in a Lok Sabha election. According to EC sources, the new-age EVMs will be introduced in a coming assembly bye-election and, depending on the results, its use may be widened to a Lok Sabha by-poll, in case a vacancy arises.

However, holding the 2014 general election fully with the new EVM prototype is ruled out, as the gigantic democratic exercise is barely 14 months away and the logistics of arranging over 10 lakh new-age EVMs is virtually impossible.

In any case, the EC is contemplating going in for a completely new set of EVMs with built-in hardware to enable a paper trail. Sources in Nirvachan Sadan hinted that a Venezuelan prototype, which has the facility to record a paper trail, is being studied as a model for the next-generation EVM.

For now, the existing 6 lakh compatible EVMs will be fitted with a printing unit that generates a paper trail of each ballot. This paper trail can be seen by the voter soon after he casts his vote, after which it will automatically sever from the printing roll and drop into a box.

The EC had some concerns over the size of the slot in which the paper trail was to drop, with officials pointing out that it was big enough for a voter to manage a look at details of the last vote cast. The slot is now being made smaller.

Incidentally, the commission was keen to hold the by-election to Mizoram's Chalfilh assembly constituency — which has just 16,000 electors and 29 polling stations and is due to go to polls on February 23 — with the paper trail-enabled EVMs. However, as the production of the EVM prototype with a smaller slot for the drop box is expected to take some time, the launch may have to wait for another by-poll.

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